Text by Oliva María Rubio, Mieke Bal.

Published by Hatje Cantz.

Andres Serrano (born 1950), one of the most celebrated representatives of contemporary photography and art, achieved major prominence for his work “Piss Christ,” which to this day has not lost any of its unsettling impact. Religion, sexuality and death are pervasive elements of his oeuvre.Raised as a Catholic in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, Serrano became curious about the Hasidic community there from an early age. An invitation to Israel expanded his artistic repertoire: using a Mamiya RB67, he approached the subject of religious faith via the landscape and the people. He visited sacred sites in Bethlehem, Ramallah, Galilee and the Dead Sea; came closer to people step by step, picture by picture, following them through their everyday lives and to celebrations, ultimately depicting the traces of the identity of an entire nation in their faces, in intense studio photographs.

Andres Serrano (born 1950) has photographed the homeless, Ku Klux Klansmen, corpses and feces, but he is most famous--or infamous, in some circles--for his “Piss Christ” (1987), showing a crucifix submerged in the artist’s urine. Serrano returns again and again to scandalous or uncomfortable themes like religion, death, sex and violence, and his work prompts debate or even violent reaction, making vandalism and censorship inexorably part of the story of Serrano’s art as well.Published to accompany a major exhibition at the Royal Museum of Fine Arts of Belgium, Andres Serrano: Uncensored Photographs presents the many faces of Serrano and his work, tracing the trajectory of his career in more than 100 photographs.

Andres Serrano (born 1950) has photographed the homeless, Ku Klux Klansmen, corpses and feces, but he is most famous--or infamous, in some circles--for his “Piss Christ” (1987), showing a crucifix submerged in the artist’s urine. Serrano returns again and again to scandalous or uncomfortable themes like religion, death, sex and violence, and his work prompts debate or even violent reaction, making vandalism and censorship inexorably part of the story of Serrano’s art as well.Published to accompany a major exhibition at the Royal Museum of Fine Arts of Belgium, Andres Serrano: Uncensored Photographs presents the many faces of Serrano and his work, tracing the trajectory of his career in more than 100 photographs.

Published by Damiani.Introduction by James Frey. Text by Germano Celant.

Holy Works is the culmination of Andres Serrano’s vision of Christian iconography, reinterpreted photographically for the present. Serrano’s intention with these works is not to recreate specific medieval or renaissance religious paintings, nor to invest them with the iconoclasm that made his name in the 1980s, but rather to renew the genre of sacred portraiture: “Rather than destroy sacred icons,” says the artist, “I reinvent and reinforce them.” Serrano’s subjects for this series are selected from among his friends and acquaintances, emphasizing (like Caravaggio before him) the ordinariness of human features. The genres and themes are familiar, and Holy Works includes a “Last Supper” and a “Stations of the Cross” (rendered as a triptych panel), as well as bolder portrayals typical of Serrano--a “Blood Madonna” and a “Chinoise Madonna,” for example. This volume is Serrano’s major statement of his religious and artistic belief.